Saturn Returns puts leading lady in limelight

Friday 5 November 2010 10:30 BST

A fine romance: Lisa Caruccio Came and Christopher Harper in Saturn Returns

Noah Haidle’s Saturn Returns is a study of loneliness. Solitary 88-year-old Gustin (Richard Evans) conjures up memories of his 58- and 28-year-old selves (Nicholas Gecks and Christopher Harper). The play’s title derives from the fact that the planet Saturn takes approximately 30 years to complete a single orbit around the sun. Supposedly, each time it returns to the position it was in when an individual was born, personal cataclysm results.

We see the three different versions of Gustin struggling with three different women: his carer Suzanne, his daughter Zephyr as she tries to coerce him into a blind date, and his amorous wife Loretta. "There are echoes," his present-day incarnation says portentously: he can’t move out of his Michigan home because it reverberates with so many hints of his past.

Structurally, this archaeology of reminiscence is an elegant piece of work yet the content is scanty. We’re treated to melancholy and intimacy but little depth. And Gustin is in none of his guises a sympathetic protagonist.

By far the best feature of Adam Lenson’s tidy but none too subtle production is Lisa Caruccio Came. Playing all three women, she radiates poise, charm and intelligence.